Imperfect
Directed by Regan Linton and Brian Mahone 
Runtime: 1 hour, 17 minutes
Unrated
Available to watch digitally February 16

by Billie Anderson, Staff Writer

In the year 2024, it is still nearly impossible to find any medium that discusses disability without its ties to pathologization or inspiration. Disabled people seem to exist in popular culture for non-disabled viewers to derive emotions from: they exist in biopics to illustrate overcoming and superhuman capacity, they exist in comedies for belittling and easy slapstick dramatization, and they exist in documentaries for narratives of inspiration and emotion. Rarely do narratives of disability present disability as a common facet of everyday life. 

In comes Imperfect, a documentary that follows a production of Chicago put on by Phamaly Theatre Company in Denver. Directed by Brian Mahone and Regan Linton–who also serves as the artistic director of the production–Imperfect follows the behind the scenes of the company’s production, from auditions to performance night. There's some trepidation attached to starting a movie about a group of actors with disabilities putting on a production with this much physicality. It's the sort of thing that could get really treacly really fast in a way that these things often do, which is disingenuous to the life of disabled people. However, Imperfect never even approaches that. Ir's an exuberant, objective look at all the elements that bring a show together. It reminded me more of Disney+ Encore! than simply existing as another representation of the triumphs of disability. 

The one thing that I felt like was missing was logistics. For anyone who knows anything about Chicago, I’m sure your first thought, much like mine, was how do you begin to put on a show of this caliber/physicality/choreography with a disabled cast? Unfortunately, the documentary only lightly touches on this process, and with a runtime of under 1.5 hours, I would have loved to see more conversations from the creative team of how to navigate differing abilities, or opposing accessibility needs of the cast, while also holding the cast to the standards of a professional cas. 

On this front, the best moment in the documentary to me follows film and musical director Regan Linton stating “when you have a disability [...] everything just takes a little longer.” Almost immediately following the process Linton goes through to get ready for her day, audiences are shown behind the scenes of the dress rehearsal and are met with the reality that it is nearly impossible to do quick changes, something that is often necessary for stage productions, with a disabled cast. While I wish that the documentary focused more on the logistics of putting on a production of this caliber with a disabled cast, this scene did more to illustrate the care and attention that went into not only putting on the production of Chicago and the dedicated team behind it, but also the care that went into producing this documentary. To illustrate these struggles without verbalizing them made for a really poignant moment in the film, one that I was looking for earlier on in the scenes that introduced the choreography to the cast. 

With such a simple premise and result, it seems depressing that this documentary is almost revolutionary: a documentary about disabled people that feels aimed towards other disabled viewers and not towards the abled “inspo-porn” gaze. Sure, this is an inspirational film, but it is a film that inspires action and creation, not sympathy or pity. Linton is captivating as both creator and subject—her warm, loving touch is felt in every scene. Her passion for the arts (and for better disabled representation within those arts) is so powerful that it filled me with so much hope. The film is so candid in how it depicts other disabled artists sharing in their passions to create. 

Disabled people deserve to make art. They deserve to have their art be seen, and they deserve to be respected like all other artists. Imperfect is, well, an imperfect movie—it’s too short to fully cover the scope of the production, glosses over many meaningful events, and sometimes feel more like a blooper reel or clip show than an actual documentary—but the beating heart at the film’s center triumphs over its faults. It's documentaries like this that make me love documentaries. This is not a film that focuses on overcoming adversity, just a portrait of people doing what they love.